2. Are you free in your affections from all others, and have you them centred alone upon this your brother or sister?
3. Do you receive this person as your lawfully wedded husband [wife], do you promise to be faithful to him [her], to reverence him [to love her], and that nothing but death shall separate you; that, by the help of God, you will, to the best of your ability, fulfil all the duties which God has enjoined on believing husbands and wives?
In answering this last question, I observed the bride to lift her eyes to the preacher’s face, as if in fearless trust. Then the preacher, directing them to join hands, pronounced them man and wife, and invoked a blessing upon them. This was followed by a short prayer, after which the wedded pair separated, each again taking a place among the congregation. The occasion was solemn. On resuming his place in the desk, the preacher’s eyes were seen to be suffused, and pocket-handkerchiefs were visible on either side (the sisters’ white, those of the brethren of colored silk). The audience then knelt, while the preacher prayed, and I heard responses like those of the Methodists, but more subdued. The preacher made a few remarks, to the effect that, although it would be grievous to break the bond now uniting these two, it would be infinitely more grievous to break the tie which unites us to Christ; and then a quaint hymn was sung to a familiar tune. This “church” does not allow wedding-parties, but a few friends may gather at the house after meeting.
At Amish weddings the meeting is not in a church, like the one just spoken of, for their meetings are held in private houses. I hear that none go to this meeting but invited guests, except that the preachers are always present; and after the ceremony the wedded pair with the preachers retire into a private apartment, perhaps for exhortation upon their new duties.
A neighbor tells me that the Amish have great fun at weddings; that they have a table set all night, and that when the weather is pleasant they play in the barn. “Our Pete went once,” she continued, “with a lot of the public-school scholars. They let them go in and look on. They twisted a towel for the bloom-sock, and they did hit each other.” (Bloom-sock, plump-sack, a twisted kerchief,—a clumsy fellow.)
“The bloom-sock” (oo short), I hear, “is a handkerchief twisted long, from the two opposite corners. When it is twisted, you double it, and tie the ends with a knot. One in front hunts the handkerchief, and those on the bench are passing it behind them. If they get a chance, they’ll hit him with it, and if he sees it he tears it away. Then he goes into the row, and the other goes out to hunt it.”
It has also been said that at Amish wedding-parties they have what they call Glücktrinke, of wine, etc. Some wedding-parties are called infares. Thus, a neighbor spoke of “Siegfried’s wedding, where they had such an infare.” The original meaning I suppose to be home-coming.
It must not be inferred from these descriptions that we have no “fashionable” persons among us, of the old German stock. When they have become fashionable, however, they do not desire to be called “Dutch.”
QUILTINGS.
There lives in our neighborhood a pleasant, industrious “Aunt Sally,” a yellow woman; and one day she had a quilting, for she had long wished to re-cover two quilts. The first who arrived at Aunt Sally’s was our neighbor from over the “creek,” or mill-stream, Polly M., in her black silk Mennist bonnet, formed like a sun-bonnet; and at ten came my dear friend Susanna E., who is tall and fat, and very pleasant; who has Huguenot blood in her veins, and—